Africa Power and Politics (APPP) training workshop opens in Accra
25 Jun 2009
Research Project on Local Justice Provision.
A new study that is likely to change the future of donor support for African countries is underway in Accra Ghana. The Africa Power and Politics Program (APPP) is studying governance institutions in Africa with the hope of identifying indigenous local institutions that are working to produce public goods and to alleviate poverty in their societies. Such institutions could be used as a standard for convincing development partners to change their concept of development in Africa. If successful, the study will revolutionize donor attitude to aid and development in Africa.
This was contained in a keynote address delivered by Professor Richard Crook, a Professorial Research Fellow from the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, at a one week training workshop for research officers in Accra. Professor Crook, who is also a lead researcher of the Africa Power and Politics research program, is in the country to provide support to research officers who are being trained to carry out a one year project on the workings of local justice institutions such as District Magistrate Courts, the Commission for Human Rights and Administrative Justice, and new Customary Land Secretariat and Land Dispute Committees.
Professor Crook, who was formerly Director of the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, University of London and an expert in African politics and public sector reform told participants that the study is an unusual program occasioned by the general dissatisfaction with the record of the good governance agenda in Africa. He said western definitions of good governance are primarily Anglo-American imposition and do not correspond with the reality of public management in Africa.
Prof. Richard Crook addressing the participants
"Western insistence on the ideals of good governance has not worked in Africa in spite of the huge donor capital inflows into the continent. In Japan, East Asia and the Latin America, what works is a process of development facilitated by local institutional adaptations. What Africa has already can be a raw material for Africa's own development," he argued.
Professor Crook said newly independent African economies are still caught in the web of neo-patrimonialism, an entrenched system which allows individuals with contacts to highly placed officials in the society to break official rules for personal gain. However, he noted that neo-patrimonialism was not specifically an African creation-indeed it can be found in many other societies. "It probably is a function of post colonialism and has been a major challenge to development in Africa."
A cross-section of the participants at the workshop
He said the Africa Power and Politics Programme seeks to "work with the grain" of African societies by looking for the type of government that works best because it is based on the way things work in those societies.
The Africa Power and Politics Program is being carried out by a consortium of research institutions including the Overseas Development Institute (ODI), the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) CDD-Ghana, Lasdel in Niger, DRT in Uganda, the University of Florida's Center for African Studies and Shadyc in France.
